South Korea's new President Park Geun-hye, wearing a traditional dress ,waves after her inauguration ceremony as the 18th South Korean President in Seoul, South Korea on Monday. — AP SEOUL — The country with the developed world's biggest gender income gap now has its first female president, but Park Geun-hye already has South Koreans wondering whether she'll improve the status of women in a society still dominated by men. Wearing a traditional Korean dress of red and gold silk, Park strode up the steps of the presidential Blue House after her inauguration Monday. So far, she has chosen only two women to join her in top positions — two less than a male liberal predecessor. Park faces expectations that she will do something about pervasive sexism, and many other issues. Those include authoritarian rival North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test two weeks ago and warned Monday of a fiery death for Seoul and its ally Washington. South Korea also struggles with deep societal rifts that many trace back to the 18-year dictatorship of Park's father. With a stagnant economy and job worries, there's pressure for Park, a member of the conservative ruling party, to live up to campaign vows to return to the strong economic growth her father oversaw — the so-called Miracle on the Han River. Park's election in December was an important moment for women in South Korea, who on average earn nearly 40 percent less than men, the largest gap among the 26 member nations of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development. South Korean women are often paid less for doing the same work as men and seldom rise to the top of high-profile industries. During her presidential campaign, Park criticized “traditionally male-centered politics" for corruption and power struggles, saying that “South Korean society accepting a female president could be the start of a big change." Critics, however, are taking note that Park has nominated women for only two of 18 Cabinet posts — and that one of those positions, the minister responsible for gender equality, hasn't been held by a man since being launched in 2001. Park's conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, also nominated two women to start his term, while former President Roh Moo-hyun, Lee's liberal predecessor, named four. Kyunghyang Shinmun, a liberal daily newspaper, pointed out in a recent editorial that there are no women among the 12 officials tapped as senior presidential advisers. Park's nomination of so few women is disappointing, as there was a high public expectation for better gender equality in her Cabinet, said Park Seon-young, a researcher at the government-affiliated Korean Women's Development Institute in Seoul. Her first weeks in office will be complicated by North Korea's warning of unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity," a threat that comes as Washington and others push for tightened UN sanctions as punishment for the nuclear test. Park's last stint in the presidential Blue House was bookended by tragedy: At 22, she cut short her studies in Paris to return to Seoul and act as President Park Chung-hee's first lady after an assassin targeting her father instead killed her mother; she left five years later, in 1979, after her father was shot and killed by his spy chief during a drinking party. — AP
